Circular Conversations

I'm tired of conversations that circle around themselves like a lost Hansel and Gretel with no more bread crumbs.  I find that sometimes, sitting at the living room table, I feel myself transported back to some dusty memory in which the same words twist through the air in similar patterns. The same questions repeating themselves, the same daily actions replaying endlessly like the hands of a clock. And these fill our conversations, infiltrating them at every possible moment.

The circles are inescapable. 

I'm getting tired of it. I'm ready for something that goes ON, beyond those circles, that brings in new shapes and colors and words to create something entirely new, so that we can escape from the infinite loop. 

charity: water Birthday Campaign

Please visit my charity:water Birthday Campaign page to watch the video and read about how my charity will help water projects. http://mycharitywater.org/p/campaign/?campaign_id=21342 (The following is the commentary I wrote for that campaign page.)

I'm about to turn 15. Wow. With a birthday the day before Christmas, it's easy to get caught up in the comfort of the holidays and the excitement of giving and receiving gifts. With new, just released books lining the shelves of bookstores and cute outfits winking at me from store windows, it's easy to just sit back and forget about all the people in the world who are less fortunate than I, figuring, "I work hard. There are people who would buy all of those things without a thought. I deserve that stuff." 

And maybe I do. But what I've found is that I don't REALLY want it that much. When I compare it with the way my heart aches when I watch this video, my want is nothing. So this year, instead of asking for things, which will just crowd my room and give me more to be stressed about as I try to clean up, I'm asking for water for a family somewhere in Africa.

I've set my goal as $60, because at $20 per person, that is enough to provide a family of 3 - the same size as mine - with clean water. I do not ask you to give any more or any less than what you would usually spend on a birthday present for me. 

There has been many a time when I feel disgusted with the ease of life here, because I begin to feel that everything I live on is built upon some Jenga tower facade that could collapse at the slightest nudge. The water from my tap comes to me through other people's labor, and the food I eat, though it may be local, has still passed through many other's hands before mine. And this allows me to learn and grow every second of the day, because I do not have to worry about having clean water, food, or clothes. This opportunity has been lost for many women in sub-Saharan Africa, who spend more time every day collecting water than they do doing any other activity. We're not talking just a few families here, either: 1 billion people live this way every year.

If it cost $20 to provide you with clean water, would you give up that nice shirt you've been wanting? I bet you would. So donate to my campaign for charity:water, and change a life.

It's That Time of Year for...Noveling!

It is with much pride and disbelief that I announce (a few days late) the one-year anniversary of you, blog! It seems like it's been so much longer than a year, seeing as the world of words has really always been with me, but since it's only been one year with you, that just means there is so much more time left to spend with you!

There's a lot to catch up on, and so many things I could talk about that center around events. But I think I'd rather focus on ideas, because my appreciation for ideas pretty much surpasses that of anything else.

It's November. It's NaNoWriMo time. I knew, without a doubt, that I would participate in it again this year, and had been mulling over my idea for a couple of months; because this time, I am determined to actually finish a novel, something I did not accomplish last year. That was due to the fact that the idea I came up with was so complex and intriguing that I couldn't limit it to only one plot thread. NaNo became more of a novel-starter rather than something that actually made me finish one. Anyway, back to this year - I came up with an idea while at the zoo in Shanghai, China this summer. I made extensive character outlines, plot outlines, and developed a theme. I couldn't wait to start writing, and especially to see where my characters took me.

Yet on November 1st - the morning of which I forced myself to pull away from my computer and not start on my novel so that I could focus on my English and Biology Honors exam that day (!) - I walked out of my first exam at 12:00 a.m. and an entirely different idea hit me. I walked out of the doors to the gym, and saw the late morning sunlight streaming in through the windows, and I saw dust floating in it, and I heard the silence of an empty hallway, and I felt the release of all those thoughts and facts I'd just dealt with on the test from my brain. And I wondered...what if dust could take you to another time? Dust is, after all, the remains of something that existed in the past.

More later. I'll provide you with a full description. Right now, my novel is calling out to me, tugging at my heart and my fingers and my mind, but I've got to work on my English essay. Because I, unlike Ella (the main character) cannot let dust take me back in time. I have to deal with the present, where every second something changes, and if you don't grab onto that second with all your passion, it could be lost.

A Letter About Words & Rain

I stayed up late on Monday night because I wrote this...it was pretty fun. I submitted it to the Upper School Lit Mag...fingers crossed it gets in! But if it doesn't, the fun I had writing is an achievement all its own.

FROM:

Someone

Page 1,876

Webster’s Third New International Dictionary

Rainy, Big Fat World

A Rainy Day

TO:

                  Whomever

    Page Whichever

Webster’s Third New International Dictionary

Rainy, Big Fat World

A Rainy Day

To Whomever May Be Interested in Some Words and Rain,

I hope the puzzle pieces fit together.

Whoever thought up the idea of writing a dictionary deserves daily kudos for their ingenuity. The dictionary is like a mother or a soft bed or hot chocolate – it’s what you turn to when the puzzle pieces just don’t fit. Or when you’re lazy: “disliking physical or mental exertion.”

But look at this… After the definition of lazy in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, several phrases are listed in which it is commonly used: “lazy summer day,” “lazy weather,” “lazy chair.” Funny, that while reading the definition of such a motionless word, the tendrils of one’s mind begin to run out and away with the static recognition of familiar circumstances.

And then the puzzle pieces always fit, even if they fit in such a way that the history paper you were lost on suddenly makes sense and now you have to spend an hour changing your answer to reflect your newly acquired genius on the exact definition of some word like bureaucracy.

Dictionaries are the perfect supplement to a rainy day. On rainy days you often feel small, like all the clouds in the widening sky and the millions of raindrops and the sheer power of our planet’s weather could just swallow you up without anyone’s notice. J.D. Salinger says in Catcher in the Rye: “It was that kind of a crazy afternoon, terrifically cold, and no sun out or anything, and you felt like you were disappearing every time you crossed a road.” For someone who is often stopped short by the knowledge that there’s just so much knowledge and so many things in the world, those words express that sensation of insignificance when faced by the all-encompassing weather of the world.

Dictionaries are big, generally. You can have pocket dictionaries, or keychain dictionaries, but they generally have a “big” connotation in our minds. They’re big and fat, like the world, or like a “Love It” serving of ice cream from Coldstone Creamery. But unlike the world or ice cream, dictionaries are contained. They’re limited. They have a beginning and an end. They’re constant.

One of the definitions of rain that arises after the obvious ones is: “to occur in a multitudinous onset.” What a multitudinous (“existing in or consisting of innumerable forms, particles, elements, or aspects,” which in this case would be syllables) word multitudinous is, especially for a dictionary to use in a definition (“to determine, bring to an end, explain”). How, when I just looked up two words to comprehensively explain the meaning of another, can that bring the word rain “to an end?”

Anyway, back to rain: isn’t it true, though, that if this multitudinous onset is rain, that life equals rain? And maybe that’s why we feel so swallowed up every time it rains, because it’s like life is staring us in the eye saying, “You’re just another thing to be multitudinously onset upon?” Or is this multitudinous onset, as it exists in innumerable forms, another way of saying, “Wow, look at all the innumerable forms of things that can rain down on you? Isn’t this all so wonderful, this diversity of onsets?” Is there any way to really pin down what the multitudinous onset is and what it means for all of us, unless you were to look up every word in its definition…and still, would that bring you to an end? Eventually, maybe. But it would be more like bringing you back to a beginning.

Just like now, when all this looking up and interpreting and explaining  is leading me back to one, simply complicated conclusion: Life is a dictionary that eventually comes to an end by wandering off on courses affected by multitudinous onsets and invariably cycling back to the beginning.

I hope the puzzle pieces fit together to whomever may be interested in some words and rain.

Multitudinously yours,

Someone Who Is Interested in Some Words and Rain

P.S. Sometimes life gets complicated and doesn’t make sense; just like this wouldn’t have if I’d put it in one of the previous paragraphs. But this coincidence is just too awesome: one of the examples for the uses of multitudinous is, “urgent demand upon my attention made by the multitudinous world around me – Richard Church.” And another: “the long multitudinous rain – Carl Sandburg.” Just goes to show the interconnectedness of words.

P.P.S. As I am someone who is interested in some words and rain, and therefore am also a “whomever” who is interested in some words and rain, I hope just as much that the puzzle pieces fit together for me as well as for whomever else may be interested in some words and rain. Sometimes they don’t.

P.P.P.S. Thanks Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, you 2,662 page hunk of multitudinous-y life.

By Mollie G. Greenberg

The Quickest Way to Get From Hell to Heaven

Write an essay. (An assigned one, I mean, where you don't get to choose the topic, because those are always the type that seem impossible at first.) 

Read the question, look at all the different layers of verbs that it contains. Despair at the cryptic nature of it all, at the feeling that you're never going to be able to dig deep enough to decipher it. Then think about, and everything clears up. 

At least that's how the process goes for me. Except that, if the process of an essay were to be mapped out on a time line, the despairing part would take up such a small amount of space at the beginning that you'd have to use a microscope to see that part of the line. If printed out, the fibers in the paper of that "despairing" section would be countable. So, even though at first glance writing that essay might seem like hell, it really is the quickest way to get from hell to heaven. Because then, after I think about it even the slightest bit, there's this leap for joy inside of me, like I'm jumping all the way past the clouds. Because I know I'll learn from it. I'll learn from it like crazy. 

It got to the point sometime last year - maybe even 7th grade - that I learned what my reaction always was to essays and realized that there was no point in even having that despairing time at all, because I'd learned, from experience, that I always learned from writing essays. I actually have to pull reality in to tell me, when I'm first handed that essay assignment sheet, that it could be hard, that I have to start working on it, that I should treat it as something hard so that I don't blow it off (or else I could get all creative-y on it, and that's certainly not what a history paper should be). But I've discovered this magic with essays - no matter how put down I might feel at some point about them, no matter how much I struggle, they always come together in the end. And sometimes I don't even know how. It's just magic - the magic of words. 

And it's heaven when you realize something you didn't before because you had to write an essay analyzing, interpreting, or comparing it, or when you construct a perfect sentence, or use a perfect word, or it fits perfectly on the page. (Gosh, the smallest things can make me happy.)

I'm excited about finishing my Mid-Term Essay for World Civilizations. I might spend a considerable amount of my weekend on it, and I won't get a perfect grade on it (World Civ is like a second English class), but I'll learn from it, and that's what counts the most. 

Plus, who wouldn't want to just give Hell a quick little nudge that sometimes doesn't even touch, and then soar up into the heights of Heaven to stay a good while? 

Hmm, just realized that it's almost as if I'm saying you die when you write an essay...noo, that's not what I'm saying at all, because everything comes aLIVE when you write an essay.

Whew

First day of high school?

Let me just say - at one point I felt like a bush in a forest of tall trees, and once I also understood what its like for a mouse, being sooo much incredibly shorter than everything else that you can't see around them. And I'm really not that short.

It would've also been nice if people - this means kids, sophomore to senior, and all of the teachers as well - had made an effort to speak up in morning announcements. It was pretty easy to miss the fact that we were following Monday's schedule - with different timing and a switch between two periods - on a Tuesday. (And even with the schedules posted, how are we, as freshmen, to be sure that going to periods 1 2 3 4 5 etc, means to follow Monday's schedule, seeing as we're not used to our schedule changing everyday.)

The classes, the teachers, were great. Like WowI'mSoExcitedICan'tBelieveWe'reActuallyGoingToBeLearningAllOfThis great. (Plus the textbooks look genuinely interesting too, which is like a...farely rare phenomenon!)

I'll be okay, I know, but I did feel pretty overwhelmed. And since I woke up at 4:45 this morning (not on purpose) I was kind of more in the mood to lie down and take a nap than get a jump start on my homework. But I did do the homework.

Compared to the Chinese exchange student in our grade whom I helped along all day, my problems are extremely minimal. I think she would have been far beyond lost if she wouldn't have had anyone to help her out.

Mostly, I'm afraid that I'll forget something. Or neglect something. Actually, most of all, I suppose I'm afraid that I'll have to give something up that I love to keep my grades up to par (well, at least satisfactorily up to the par I've become accustomed to), which is something that I've never had to do. But I'll be okay. If I just keep telling myself that - and if I get some exceptionally awesome sleep - I'll be okay.

Oh, and if I remember who I am. But that won't be hard.

8th Grade Achievements

Recently, my dad helped me put up a bulletin board strip in my room, on which I promptly tacked some of the certificates/ribbons I am especially proud of on. I wanted this strip, not to show off what I've done or boast about it to anyone who visits, but to remind myself, at times when I may not be feeling fully up to par, what I've accomplished so far. Walking in and out of my room throughout the day, seeing those certificates on my wall, and tying up some loose ends from things I started during the year, I've been thinking about how much I did in my eighth grade year. And it's really quite a lot. It felt like a good year, a great year, but not a blazing-white-hot-with-accomplishments year...but it really was quite awesome. So, I've decided to make a list of the things I did/accomplished/feel great about in my eighth grade year so that I will never forget this past year. Hopefully, it's the first in a chain of great, successful years. We'll see. (I'd like to make a list of the things I accomplished in middle school too, so that I can go back and say, see, middle school wasn't as bad as everybody says it is. Actually, it was exceptionally great for me, thanks to great friends, great parents, great teachers, and a great school. And some great, gluten-free food at the end of it. Oh yum...)

Fall Term:

• played soccer and had a lot of fun. (Don't forget how much fun playing a team sport is, compared with something like track.) Scored two goals in one game! (They were headers, too, and yes, it was mainly the person who passed me the ball that scored the point...but I was still extremely proud of myself.) Played forward almost the whole season.
• took Speech and Debate, in which I made an informational speech about compost, and in which the compost program was kickstarted, and we decided to found what would later become ATAC. Quote from my teacher Ms. Carey's comment: "You entered class feeling comfortable in front of your peers, but I think you have gotten even more comfortable."

Winter Term:

• Started this blog!
• In November, I participated in NaNoWriMo and started a novel that I get increasingly excited and anxious about every time I think of it. (Meaning that I think this is "the one.")
• I turned 14! Had a great birthday party where everybody came out to Yellow Springs, took a hike, and saw the Clifton Lights. (That felt worth mentioning.)
• Participated in the Scale Ribbon Festival for piano, and got all blue ribbons! (You play scale-type stuff and a piece, people judge you and sort of grade you. Yahoo. It's not a big deal but I got super-duper-shaky nervous, so it was more about beating the nerves that I'm proud of.)
• Mrs. Kessler (Geometry teacher) said this on my grades: "I revel in your success." (Sweet!)
• Won a marathon school spelling bee.
• Played the March Hare in the school production of Alice in America-Land. That, I think, was my favorite role ever. (And my best friend Cora, who played the Mad Hatter, and I made perfect comedic accomplices.)
• Read Night, by Elie Weisel. Aahh...
• Played squash. Only played one actual match (and I didn't win, but I won one game).
• My Mandarin class placed second in the singing competition at Miami University. 
• Took the SAT for the second time, and got a score which I am...very proud of.
• Got to be a Student Ambassador for MVS (once, at the Open House, but hopefully that continues in high school).
• Got to talk to the author of The Tension of Opposites, Kristina McBride, who was truly AMAZING!
• A short essay I wrote for Chinese won Honorable Mention in a contest (I was pretty proud to get even that, since I hadn't really been expecting anything.) (Actually I'm really not sure which term that was in...but I figured that Winter term was equally close to the two others, so I wouldn't be far off ;).)

Spring Term:

• My Holocaust Window Project was completed, submitted, and won second place in the art portion of the contest.
• My essay for the Xenia Optimist Club on "How My Education is Key to a Successful Future" placed second.
• Cora and I collaborated on a high school TV drama (we got totally out of character) script for the April Script Frenzy (same company as NaNoWriMo).
• I got to shovel some dirt at the groundbreaking ceremony for the MVS greenhouse!
• Played lacrosse, loved it, and scored a goal almost every game!
• Over spring break, my parents and I went on our first big college trip! (To Oberlin and Kenyon.)
• Finished and turned in my first term paper, about Biosphere 2.
• Got A+'s for National Guild, at the state level. (Piano, once again, seven memorized things, five songs and two scales plus other scale-related things.)
• Took the ACT for the first time.
• Finished up all of my vaccines for China.
• Graduated the 8th Grade!

And that all goes without saying that I did very well in school, kept my grades up, studied, read books...and ya know, plenty of other things. (I'm sure there are some things I forgot to mention..so maybe I'll add a few in later or something..or not.)

As for what I did over the summer...that'll be another list. (One I should probably make soon seeing as school starts tomorrow...)

The FFA Contract

I just completed the Family Food Adventure Contract, something of my promoting which you'll be hearing about shortly, and I'm very excited. I'm also in a formal (ish) writing mood. It's quite fun, actually. Anyway, I'd like to give you a preview of the Contract (which hasn't yet been approved by the other two members of the Family), to show off my work of the last hour or so and let you share in the excitement of a draft completed in one sitting! (Don't worry, I really will make it a preview, a short one.)

:D

The Adventure

A year-long experience in which the Greenberg family (Dione, Saul, and Mollie) will prepare, eat, and learn about all different kinds of foods.

How It Works

Each month focuses on a different theme – this may pertain to the type of food itself, the manner in which it is prepared, the ethnic or historical origin, the time of year the food is eaten or produced, etc. Each member of the family shall have a delegated Role. Each member of the family shall take part in the documentation of this Adventure by participating in the writing of a blog.

...

The Continuous Themes

The Continuous Themes are things that the Family will attempt to experiment with to the best of their ability throughout the duration of the experience, are: raw, local, homegrown, fermented, organic, vegan, gluten-free, low-fat, and seasonal food, smoothies, and healthy desserts.

More later on the origin of the FFA. (I'm quite proud of it, as it was pretty much my own invention.) For now, I've had a busy day (in which I've biked/run/walked for an hour and a half, met the Chinese exchange student that will be in our class next year, went to school - which was an odd experience - to pass the test letting us into Mandarin III alongside my best friend that both of us thought we were only asking our teacher questions about today, not actually taking, saw the progress that's been made on the greenhouse at our school so far, showed the Chinese girl the drinking fountain and discovered that she didn't know how to use it, discussed plans for a Hunger Games themed birthday party with Cora, gotten the best deals at Kroger with my dad, and eaten some really really good food made by my wonderful mom) and I'm ready to read and go to dreamland.

The Life-Changing Cheesecake, A New Home, and...I Wish "Agave" Was Pronounced "Aguave"

I've missed you, World of Words.

I've missed you, blog.

And you are, simultaneously, two different things inexplicably intertwined with each other, and the same thing altogether. (I like that sentence!)

We got back from our college trip on Saturday night. Despite now - superly unfortunately, since summer is the time to not do this - being a little stressed about getting things done that need to be done (such as studying Chinese and finishing at least the first unit of my online course), the trip was very worthwhile.

Here are the collegs we visited, in order, with ratings from 1-5 (1 being the worst, 5 being the best):
Cornell - 3
Harvard - 2
Brandeis - 2
Wellesley (the campus only, since we didn't have time for a tour) - 5 (but that's not taking into account any information about the college, or the fact that it's an all-girls college...just the fact that the campus was beautiful and green and hilly and Hogwartsy!)
Brown - 3
Yale - 4
Vassar - 2
Bard - 4
Oberlin - 5.....mmiiIILLLLIIOonnn

Especially after visiting Yale, which was the first college that I actually liked, and didn't just feel that there was something I didn't like about it, I was afraid that I'd go back to Oberlin and have the exact same feeling as I did before - really liking it, feeling like I could fit in, and familiarity with the town - but nothing less or more. This would make my decision more difficult, because I would be torn between something that I thought was a perfect fit and something that was a good enough fit and would give me tons of resources along with credentials. ('Cause really, someone hears you went to Yale and it's like WHOA!) But that wasn't my experience at all.

When we drove into the town of Oberlin, at about 9:00 at night,  I actually felt this release in my stomach. Like I'd been uncomfortable, holding some sort of tension, and as soon as we were in Oberlin that left. It felt like we were home - even for my parents. I felt comfortable and confident. And the food was so good!

Here's how it went: Aladdin's for dinner, with a giant Pita Pocket salad with felafels and some hummus from my mom's; mid-morning everything cookie and green tea with cardamon and honey at the Slow Train Cafe; and lunch at Cafe Sprouts. Cafe Sprouts is a little corner restaurant that is all vegan, gluten-free, beyond organic, local, mostly raw, and SO GOOD. Beyond belief tasty.

Especially their cheesecake.

I'm talkin' raw, pineapple banana coconut cheesecake. Cold and creamy - oh-so-creamy - it melts in your mouth like heaven. Like the best heaven ever. Better than brownie heaven or cookie heaven or cake heaven or smoothie heaven or tea heaven or fresh fruit heaven or whatever kind of food heaven you like the best, better than that. It's like eating a cloud (or what eating clouds might be like if they weren't just air and tasted like pineapple and banana and coconut).

We also had raw vegan sushi with this nutty mock chicken stuff and really good soy sauce and a raw vegan veggie-burger (with some really good rice-ish chips on the side), along with free samples of a "blueberry blondie" smoothie (which was extremely invigorating). We shared everything, along with the bottomless cup of tea that my dad ordered (you get unlimited refills....but wouldn't that be cool, a bottomless cup of tea that actually held tea? Haha, that'd be a funny joke - put "bottomless cup of tea" on your menu for a really good price so that people pounce on it, then actually give them a bottomless cup! Haaahaha, too funny...and cruel.).

After my first bite of cheesecake I was in a meditative state. Like, I'm not kidding, I seriously felt like I was meditating (let's note: I don't know what meditating actually feels like, I've never done it). For the rest of the day I couldn't help but walk around with a smile on my face, and I felt so calm, calmer than I've ever been, calmer than I feel lying in the sun or waking up to the chirp of birds or after an afternoon nap or anything.

Earlier that day we'd also walked through campus, spent some time resting in front of the Conservatory of Music, where there is a beautiful fengshui-ish pond with fishies (!); looked around in the bookstore, read some, and I got an Oberlin shirt (I made a decision to not get college shirts on this trip unless I really loved a place, and this certainly fell under that category); and walked through the Family Fun day stuff that they had out on the streets. (Mostly tables that the shops had put out.) We also checked out this really cool antique store  - I could've spent hours in there - and my mom and I got some awesome cheap sunglasses. At one point, walking along the street between the edge of campus and the town, where the street was closed off and retro cars were on display, with 60s music playing and children laughing and tables full of books from a used book store to my side, and my parents walking on either side of me, I wanted to freeze that moment and store it away somewhere so I could revisit it time and time again. I was so happy...and that was before the cheesecake.

So that was the day that raw vegan pineapple banana coconut cheesecake changed my life. That was the day when I felt ready to clim another step on my way to adulthood, to responsibility, to whatever-my-life-will-lead-to. I felt like honey, smooth and warm and flexible and real. I felt like the breeze, the clouds, the soil below my feet, the leaves reaching up to the sky. I was P-E-A-C-E. I felt like a mass of warm, cofrmting air, and I felt like nothing could disintegrate me. I felt sturdy as an oak. I am me, and that's that.

And it was also the day that I found a new home of sorts - Oberlin. The bike wheel sculpture bike racks, and the composting cups, and the recycling bins everywhere, and the huge clock besides one of the main streets (CVEC, you'll know why that's important), and the vegan/vegetarian friendly restaurants, and the gardens, and just everything, felt so ME. I could definitely live there. I could live there right now. 

So you see why I gave Oberlin a 5. Million.

And even though we went on that long trip and saw all those colleges and my parents had to deal with all that New England traffic, just to come back to one of the first ones we saw a while ago and still love it, even more, I'm still glad we went, because now I'm sure that I love Oberlin a LOT.

One more thing: Agave is pronounced "Ah-gah-vay" but I really wish it was pronounced "Ah-gwa-vay," because that's how I've been saying it, and it's just so much easier to slip off the tongue than Ah-gah-vay."  (Agave nectar is a sweetener we use in lots of our healthy desserts - think of something between maple syrup and honey.)

Getting Back in the Saddle

Yep, as the title says, I'm getting adjusted to things. I've been enjoying some pleasant mornings out in the garden with my mother, and a lot of very active dreams which all seem to have featured something linked with the China trip. I've had dreams about hotel room mix-ups, refusing to pack my luggage, and then one last night where I had some very tiny frogs as pets. I wake up almost every morning with the excitement of these dreams running through my head, and then when I tell my mom about them later they sound so dull. It's so hard to convey the full sparkle of the dreams when I tell them...and I find myself forgetting why a certain event was so, so important that it made my heart race.

I've been reading, playing a little piano, cleaning the house, letting my rabbit out and cutting his knots of fur off, taking walks, trying to wake myself up in the afternoons when I get drowsy, studying Chinese, and I just started my online Environmental Science class a few days ago. So my good summer is continuing. There have been a couple of ups and downs...

Last week, I came home after the Antioch Writers' Workshop and ate lunch. I went through feelings while sitting in the workshop of feeling a little naive/weak/away from things...I was pretty much alone the whole time because the girls in the Young Writers' Workshop who also spent the afternoons together workshopping each other's work never really talked to me; and I suppose, after a little while, I just wasn't very interested in talking to them after hearing what they talked about. It's just sitting in a lecture hall, listening to someone talk about writing and trying to get inspired in a room full of inspired people, so you don't really have to interact with anyone. Anyway, my parents both left soon after I got home, and then I had a bit of a collapse because I realized I just really wasn't up for being alone anymore. I didn't know what  to do! And I was tired, and frustrated. (That was when I plugged my computer in and tripped on the cord, which I found out later cracked the screen...thank goodness I didn't see that it had cracked then or I would have been a mess.) But I only went through a few minutes of that, because then...

I started to think about Friends, and how it can cheer me up. Then my thoughts drifted to one of the characters, Monica, who loves to clean. She cleans for fun, anytime of day. And I, being in a bit of a crazy mood, decided, Well, let's try to be like Monica and clean! And ya know what? It worked. I scrubbed at the kitchen floor, and then the cupboards, and the handles on the cupboards, and the stove and the dishwasher...and it felt so good. I was completely wrapped up in it, and I felt so organized, so in control, like everything was in its place.

I'm very proud of myself for taking Monica's example in that situation. I've discovered a new therapy for myself! (I thought I was crazy - I've barely ever liked cleaning before. Now I've just got to get myself to enjoy the organization type of cleaning...like cleaning my room..ohhhh goodness...)

I've read (counting on fingers...) six novels this summer, I think, a couple of those for the second time. And almost all of them have had to do with war. I reread The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, both in the Hunger Games series, and those are about a future United States where the people are starting a revolution against the demanding government. Then I read A Thousand Splendid Suns, which is set in Afghanistan around the war, Catch-22, and Peace, by Richard Bausch. The last two are my summer reading books, the latter assigned by the school and the former assigned by...moi! Ironically, I finished Catch-22 on Tuesday, thought, I really liked that book and I don't want it to end (I actually read the first page or so over again because I just wasn't ready for it to be over) but I'm really done with all this war. And then. Tada - Peace, a book that follows three men who hike up a freezing mountain in Italy during WWII. More war (the same war as Catch-22, actually). But they were good books.... Now I'm ready for some plain old young adult fiction though, so I've started a book called Delirium, about a (probably future) U.S. where love is considered a disease and people are "cured" of it. Hm...scary thought. (Kind of goes against the entire theme of Harry Potter....speaking of which...)

Have I mentioned that the last Harry Potter movie was ABSOLUTELY OUTSTANDINGLY AMAZING AND INCREDIBLE AND UNSPEAKABLY BRILLIANT!?!?! I was soo satisfied and happy and warm inside when it finished (along with sad because there won't be any more) and I wanted to watch it again RIGHT AWAY! I think I shall watch it again, in fact..in the theater. Oh, it was just sooo gooooddd...... (And so was $5 popcorn.)

So...there's more I could tell...but I've said enough. I'm looking forward to my dreams tonight...and hoping it won't be as hot tomorrow morning, because I'll be doing my first community service hours at a CSA farm owned by the parents of a fellow car-pooler and friend of mine!

Life is good....

An Update

This will be quick, since I'm using my mom's computer (due to reasons you'll find out in a moment) and she wants it back. I'll just say this:

A few days ago, when I plugged my computer in to charge, I set  it on top of a desk. But it wasn't pushed very far back on the desk, and when my foot got caught in the wire of the computer, it was easily pulled down and made the computer fall. The next morning when I opened up my computer to use it at the Antioch Writers' Workshop so I could take notes, I saw a green-ish screen with an internal crack through the middle, along with a ton of white dust on the screen. I'm not sure where the dust came from, but immediately I thought back to the day before when it had fallen, and it felt almost as if the wind had been knocked out of me like it is sometimes when I jump out off of a swing. When I turned it on I was met with a blinking white screen that scared me a considerable amount. The thing I was most worried about was losing all of the writing and the pictures I had saved on it. But just a few minutes ago, it was picked up by a computer mechanic, and I think everything is going to be all right!

I've been looking forward to tonight for this whole (slightly hard) week. Because... Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is coming out! The last in the whole series...it'll be over now...and I can't believe it! And beforehand, my parents and I are going to China Cottage...finally, I get American Chinese food! After about four days in China, I was already craving sesame tofu. 

I'll post again soon about the Writers' Workshop, which I've been attending the morning of which this past week. And I'll post my journals from China. I just wanted to post an update, since I haven't blogged in so long.

Back, Loving Democracy and Wanting to Eat

I got back two days ago. China seems like a dream now, a dream that brought the dream of my real life into contrast with the stark reality of the world. Almost three weeks of not being sure what I'd eat for the next meal, if I'd be able to use a sanitary toilet, and what the heck I'd be doing sure changes your ideas about time and being comfortable. Walking by dried up old women who carry trash bags full of empty water bottles and seeing people walking the city streets and waiting at bus stops with the saddest neutral expressions on their faces you've ever seen sure changes your perspective. Being fawned over by every other group of Asian people that you see, getting your picture taken, and sometimes even signing your name for a group of eager Chinese school girls, all just because you have light skin, light hair, and blue eyes, sure makes you realize how diverse your own country is. Seeing people constantly working so hard, putting up with heat and smell and uncleanliness, hundreds of school kids wearing the same clothes with their fixed the same way, walking around in groups , blending in with each other, and hearing them talk about how they can't get on Facebook or YouTube because the government doesn't allow it, sure makes you appreciate your own democratic country, where people have a choice about their job and value individuality instead of feeling obligated to be the same as the group. Driving through a forest of skyscrapers, apartment buildings that touch the sky, and standing at the top of the Oriental Pearl Tower to see that the city stretches beyond the skyline, sure makes you realize how small your own cities are. Walking on bricks and stones that are hundreds and hundreds of years old sure lets you know how young your own country is. And seeing women washing their laundry in the river, houses with their windows and doors open to let in a breeze which they depend upon for coolness, a little girl sitting on the street next to an old blind ma who plays a barely audible instrument counting bills, sure makes you believe that the streets in American really are paved with gold.

I don't know much at the moment, other than the fact that I woke up this morning at 4:00 and didn't go back to sleep, and that I've been craving a Chinese breakfast for several hours now. I must be insane. And also somewhat in love with China. So I'd love to write, but all I can really feel right now is the urge to stuff myself with food, familiar food - or food that has become familiar to me in the last few weeks.

One. More. Day.

Oi.

It hasn't quite hit me yet that this is my last day at home for three weeks, getting up early and running, then walking and working in the garden with my mom; eating breakfast on the front porch and reading; fixing salads and baking; writing, using our lush garden as inspiration; relaxing with my rabbit in my lap as I read a good book; settling in at night and reading myself to sleep while visions of the day just gone by and the next one coming up dance through my head; along with the things that aren't as relaxing, that I have to do...which isn't much, now that summer's started (really just getting ready for China).

Tomorrow at this time I'll be on a plane...and I won't be in Hong Kong until...9-ish in the morning our time. (I believe that's right.)

Anyway. Wow. I'm trying to make the most of this last day...but I don't want to do anything monumentally special. Just...have a calm, normal day. Eat some fresh fruit! Since I can't have that in China unless it's peel-able. Don't be surprised if you hear from me later...but don't be surprised if you don't. After all, I don't want to spend all of my time on the computer. Gotta soak up that Yellow Springs energy!

Malls, Thunder, Strawberries, and Purses

I told you there was more to tell about my day yesterday.

My mom and I went shopping for stuff for China. And now I think I have everything I need, except a pair of really nice-looking, comfortable, walking shoes...which I already have an alternative of. Anyway, we had to go to the mall: I hate the mall. I even begin to despise myself when I go in there. Unfortunately, sometimes you've just got to go to it, but I really wish that wasn't so. It all feels so wasteful and unnecessary, and like it's just a huge lie, a pocket away from reality, where one doesn't have anything one really has to do. Besides buy, buy, buy.

I mentioned the weird weather yesterday. It really was one of the weirdest days, weather-wise, that I've ever experienced. It was raining and thundering in the morning, with eventually some lightning. Then that died down, and while we were out shopping it was sunny and hot. Later, at about 6 or so, it started to thunder again, gradually working its way up to a rainstorm with lightning again. But here's the thing: I looked out of my window at 8:00 to see that it was almost completely dark out, but at 8:30 it was very light again. That was strange. This is all not to mention that it was windy, the kind of wind that reminds me of a hurricane because it seems to swirl around and around, then tempt the rain to join it. Fortunately, I don't think there's much of a chance of us getting a hurricane in Ohio.

This morning I woke up early and worked in the garden with my mother. (This time weird nightmarish dreams didn't get in the way of my sleep.) I like getting up early so that I can begin the day's productivity before the day itself really begins. I don't really like doing things in the middle of the day, especially when it's so agonizingly hot outside, so I much prefer to wake up early, get some exercise or just start my day, relax in the middle of the day (read, blog, make some good food, be sleepy...), then get a little more exercise and accomplish a few more things at night. I'm much more agreeable that way.

One of the things we did was picking strawberries! It's terrifically fun and satisfying: each little berry is like a piece of gold in a mine of green leaves and soil. You get so focused that you don't even realize how much you've picked, and then look at your basket to discover that it already contains a couple of jars' worth of strawberries! Sometime today my mother and I are going to make strawberry rhubarb sauce, or possibly pie, with all the berries we've acquired.

We went to the street fair today. It's held two times, once in June and then again in October, and it's a fun event, but more so for people who live out of town, I think. It really just consists of a whole bunch of booths, at least a third of which must sell jewelry, filling up the length of two of the main streets downtown. My mom and I went down there to buy gifts for my hosts families in China, and we settled on some packs of gift cards, bookmarks, and magnets with beautiful pictures of some places in Glen Helen. I also got a really pretty skirt, and then we picked up our box of food from the farming CSA we're a part of. (More strawberries!) Anyway, at the street fair, there are an abundance of purses. Purses of all kinds of sizes, shapes, patterns, materials, colors... And each one seems more tempting than the next. Of course, I always look at those things only entertaining a sort of admiring fancy, never setting my thoughts in order to actually be thinking of buying one. Which is good - I never go there expecting to get something or necessarily even wanting to. So when I do find something I really like, I feel like it's a good buy - and not that I'm being luxurious!

I also got a book on China, from the used book store downtown (which smells of old books, and has tons of them, along with a black cat who's always hanging around...it's a nice place to go for some quiet; I think the many pages and pages contained in the books absorb all the noise or something). It's a big thick one from Lonely Planet, and it has a lot more information than I need, but some very useful things just the same.

I've really got to take a shower now, and then I think I'll give in to my sleepiness and simply settle down with a good book. Ah, I'm looking forward to that... Soon, though, possibly later tonight, I've got to start packing early for China! (WOW, I'm leaving in less than a week! And trying to pack in as many blog posts as I can.)

Loss and a Place of Torture

Today...has been a strange day. About 35 minutes ago, I felt happy and content, then 30 minutes ago I felt like the stupidest person in the world.

First, I wake up at 6 a.m. after a dream about not being ready for school. I jumped out of bed the moment I realized that school was OVER, to find that a) I was sweating like a pig (I've never actually seen a pig sweat...do they really?), b) I really had to pee, and c) the rumbles of thunder were real, not in my dream (so that's why they didn't really fit the scene at all, I thought), which leads into d) I wasn't in a very deep sleep. I tried to go back to sleep, but never did completely, and for a couple hours afterward my bed became a place of torture and panic and indecision, which I was actually very glad to depart from when the time came. This meant that - and it's still true - my eyes have been simply slits in my head the whole day, slits that want to close and drift off to sleep any chance they get.

Funnily enough - though nothing about this is the slightest bit funny, and I'm totally not willing to even begin to think that way - the second horrible event of today also happened while I was on my bed. I had typed up a little piece of writing earlier, while I was sitting on the porch eating breakfast, on my iPhone. On the Notes app on my iPhone. It was a part of another something I'd started before, and I was inspired by the strange weather. So tonight, I was going to put it on my computer, possibly write some more and see where it would fit in. But instead of tapping the little envelope icon at the bottom of the Notes screen, I tapped the trash can instead.

I deleted my writing.

It felt like someone died. It felt like everyone had died, honestly, or like my own soul had departed and left a dry, crumpled, useless shell instead. It felt like the world was collapsing, like all the words and stories and memories of the world were gone forever.

I moaned, and I cried, I mourned, but I didn't forget what I had just deleted. I was completely panicked, but I forced my mind to work in hyper-drive to remember all of those words as best I could to re-write it. I wanted to collapse into my mother's arms. I wanted to eat a tub of ice cream. I wanted to tear my hair out, throw my iPhone (which is new, by the way - I got the updated version) into our creek, and beat the ground with my fists. I wanted to express my RAGE. But instead, I did what a writer must do, and I....wrote.

And what came out of it is, I think, pretty close to the original.

Fortunately, I solved a TV problem in less than a minute which my parents were getting frustrated about, right after I completed the rewriting. So that kind of made my night.

The strangest thing is that one of my first thoughts after I deleted it was, "It was meant to be." I never think things are meant to be! I'm not a believer in fate (which isn't to say that I'm a believer of free will either...but lets save that monologue for another time), and I never think about things that way. But even as I wrote, the thought kept racing through my head. "Meant to be, meant to be, meant to be..." And then I kept doing what I always do, defend the easy route, and defied that to say, "Yeah, but still, I DELETED MY WRITING!"...which would bring on another bout of tears. Why I thought this, and why I am so sure of it still, is a complete mystery, and one which I shall prevent myself from trying to solve right now...at all costs. No, I don't want to think about that right now.

At least I've blogged about it.

That's not even to mention the weird weird weird weather! There's more I could tell about today...more I will tell. But now, I need to leave this world. I need to go into the world of a book, disappear into it, into a place where people don't delete their writing, and if they do...you admire them afterward if they rewrite it. (So now, I suppose, I can admire myself. In the movie Little Women, the main character's sister burns a whole book of her writing because she's mad at the main character, who has to then rewrite the entire thing. I always thought, god, I would die, how would someone ever do that? I guess now I know.) I need to go to a place where there are no iPhones without a trash you can recover things from, no sleep deprivation, no places of torture that exist within your very own little "safe haven" of your own bed. I've gotta get OUT! And I'll be much more likable when I return.

Summer and Three Years

Yes, it's here, summer's here, no more school, no more MIDDLE school, oh my goodness, it's summer...

WOW.

I can't believe three whole years have gone by since I received that letter in the mail offering me the scholarship to Miami Valley School. I can't believe that almost three years ago, I met three girls whom I still share an (almost) undying friendship with (because there are those inevitable ups and downs). I can't believe that I am now, officially as of about 7:00 last night, a high schooler. I can't believe that I'll never again get up and go to school to walk into the blue-carpeted middle school commons. And I can't believe I'm leaving for China next week.

And those three years have been an invaluable, unforgettable, and enlightening experience. There were some extremely hard times, but I learned from every single one of them. And I tried, I always tried, to do my best. I put a bit of me into everything that I created. And that's hard - it took some of out of me. Frankly, I'm pretty exhausted now! Pretty ready for a break. Pretty ready for a pretty busy break...

A Little Surreal

I'm feeling a little surreal this evening - tomorrow is my last day of middle school academic classes. After tomorrow, we have student government olympics and then advisory parties on Friday...and the next 2 and a half weeks will be project period! (Which I'm deathly excited for...I say that a lot - I use deathly to express extremity...not sure if that's technically correct in English...but in Mandarin it is, so no matter...hmm, I suppose we say excited to death...I should really stop thinking in circles.) I shut myself in my room tonight to study for our English test over Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. And I'm finished! Now just to get to sleep not too late...be ready for English test and finishing math final tomorrow...and be moderately prepared to get up and face the world with brushed teeth, gym clothes, and an adequate, packed lunch! Of course there's also the more than twenty Mandarin characters to study...so I should probably end this post now! Just thought I should write a post on the last night that I'll have homework in middle school! Good night, and good luck (with whatever your battles are)!

"The Kite Runner," Dusty Boxes, and Mother's Day

This morning the first thing I did was to finish reading The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. And it's definitely a favorite of mine now! My mother commented a few days ago on the fact that it was a pretty heavy topic to be reading about right before bed, but I said it doesn't bother me at all. The reason? The writing is flawless. It draws you in and brings you to the place in the story, whether that be the streets of Afghanistan forty years ago or a San Fransisco flea market twenty years ago. It was one of those books that made me feel like I wasn't reading - just experiencing. The story is touching, and many times extremely tragic...sometimes hard to think about. There were barely any differences between the book and the movie, but reading the book was still amazing experience. So I would definitely recommend it...

After studying for our To Kill A Mockingbird quiz on Monday for a few minutes, I called Cora to talk about English and math. After addressing our various questions, we talked for quite a while about childhood toys and memories. With the phone still in my hand, I jumped up and made my way to the pantry joining the garage to the house, where I recovered a box containing three of my remaining American Girl Dolls and their many outfits.

I pretty much freaked out when I saw these. What excited me most was their hair...it was still in such perfect condition! I pulled the top one out - her name is Elizabeth, she's from colonial times - and hugged her. I was seriously squealing. Then my phone died and I had to take care of that, call Cora back, all the while trying to hold back my excitement. About these dolls. They are just so cool! (It's good that I was home alone at the time, because I screamed so spiritedly at one point while talking to Cora that my parents would probably have been considerably alarmed...so clearly, I didn't do a very good job of holding back my excitement...why should I?) Right now, she's sitting on my bed, right where I left her. I didn't have the heart to stow her away again the box...not quite yet. You have to understand - these dolls are practically a monument to my childhood. And apparently I haven't quite gotten over them.

So, after hanging up the phone, I continued my raid of childhood memorabilia. I brought in the chest that went along with the "art doll" that my mom handmade for me; I searched for my Webkinz, but to no avail (and that's still bothering me, seeing as those little stuffed animals were the subjects of many hours on the computer and pleading looks up to my parents in bookstores); however, I did find the box of scrapbooking supplies my mom and I had been wondering about for a while. And I also pulled out a little box of memories that contained the numerous notes the "fairies" had written to me, along with two books with fairy stories and chants, and, even, my baby teeth, which the tooth fairy graciously let me keep (yes, they were thoroughly cleaned before being deposited in the box...besides, I hardly ever bled). As I looked at these things, and read a few of the notes, I was struck by the tenacity with which my mother took to making me happy, to giving me a blessed childhood.

And then I thought: what better Mother's Day present than to remind her of what a wonderful mother she's been? So I kept the box out, and later in the day, we looked through it together. We read the fairy stories and all of the little notes. And then she pulled out other books she has with drawings that I did when I was about 2 or 3, even poems I wrote, things I said...and a book of more fairy stories that she wrote and illustrated for me. When I think of the first 6 or 7 years of my life, I am filled with a warm, sunny, comfortable feeling...but actual memories are sparse. When I see the minuscule notes my mother left for me to find when I woke up in the morning, I remember more, like the fact that I was desperate for a watch, or that I hated the color green (well, I remembered that...). And then I saw that, in one of the books my mom pulled out, she had put together a collection of memories and words and drawings to remind me of my childhood, my parents, my friends, my experiences... And it was so touching, so incredible. I shared a very nice time with my mother today, a time of remembering and sharing and laughing and almost crying sometimes...because she is an amazing mother. An unimaginably amazing mother - and I could never dare to ask for anything more. So thank you, and happy Mother's Day.

Some Mid-Afternoon Thoughts

Well, here I am, lying in the big bed with my stuff spread all around, computer on my lap, trying to accept the fact that it's finally a nice day outside and I can't enjoy it. Because my body is fighting off samples of three - sometimes deadly - diseases: measles, mumps, and rubella.

I stayed home yesterday for the whole day, and I thought I felt well enough to come to school today, so I decided to be a fighter and go for it...but I didn't start feeling better once I got to school; which I usually do - friends cheer me up. So I called my dad and he picked me up a little after lunch. The whole ride home, I put the seat back, laid back and closed my eyes, and listened to the tape my dad was playing of a class about how the brain learns. It was actually very interesting; and more enjoyable since I didn't have to worry about remembering any of the information. Once home, I retreated to this bedroom where I've been since - watching Glee on our new, HDTV with Internet, slowly wading through a math worksheet that I just found out is for extra practice, and watching YouTube videos made by two awesome brothers that Cora told me about. I'm much happier now...but still feeling kind of sick.

Seeing as it's quite difficult for me to form a whole string of thought, I'll just write some random things that have come to mind recently...if they don't make any sense...well, don't be surprised.

1.) I bumped against the TV when I was walking back to the bed a few minutes ago, and boy did it hurt! I didn't stop to marvel at the pain though, just kept going... I guess I bump into things so often now that I've become sort of immune to it.

2.) One of the only reasons (and singularly most important) that I went to school today was to present the video about charity: water to the middle school. I wanted to be a part of telling everyone about the project since it's important to me! But guess what??

The sound didn't work out. That is such an annoying reason. So i was really bummed.

Yeah, okay it ultimately sucked.

3.) It's times like these when I need to turn to the AWESOME things in the world, like Harry Potter, grapes, tea, soft pillows, or VlogBrothers YouTube videos (whose entire goal, pretty much, is increasing awesome - I'll explain more later).

4.) I haven't had Chinese food in too long.

5.) God, I seriously can't finish a thought! Today at school I was always afraid that I would open my mouth and hibbly-gibbly nonsense would come out.

6.) Is hibbly-gibble actually, like, a known term? Or only in Mollie-land?

7.) I was wondering last night... Is there a scientific or psychological reason that certain songs get stuck in our heads? Or is the tune just catchy? And what's the reason - scientifically - that those tunes are catchy?

8.) Yeah, I can't even answer the question of whether or not I want salad. Something's messed up here...

Okay, I'm pretty proud of myself! I can think enough to write that, at least... So let's hope I feel better! I don't want to miss school tomorrow! It'll be a fun day - it's Grandparents' Day in the morning (which means a totally messed up schedule and shortened classes) and Spring Fling all afternoon! Right now that actually sounds totally miserable, seeing as I don't do well in situations that are supposed to be happy when I'm sad...but hopefully I'll be happy!

charity: water

I've had a full day today. After my massage (for my shoulder) I got so sleepy I kept nodding off while I was doing my math homework. But I finished it! And now I can finally - totally - relax. I just wanted to share a video from "charity: water" about the water crisis. We're doing a project for this organization in ATAC, and we had a very inspiring and idea-filled meeting about it today. Here's the video: http://www.charitywater.org/whywater/.

The Beauty of Birds

A few days ago, I went outside to feed my rabbit when I got home from school. It was a rainy, soggy day, as most this week have been, but cheerful in its own way. The greens of the grass and the trees were vivid, bringing everything else into a color-contrasting perspective. As I turned the corner to face the front of my rabbit's cage, I looked down to see a bright yellow bird lying on the cement.

Had I not been looking down, I would have undoubtedly stepped right on him. I paused, still leaning over, one foot ready to step forward, and examined the little bird. He was lying on his side, feet curled up under him, eyes shut. He bore no signs of rough treatment or injury, but there he lay, dead. Right in front of my rabbit, who hopped around his cage with bursting energy. I was shocked that something so bright and beautiful and healthy-looking could be dead, and amongst so much life.

I mourned the bird's death as I scooped him up with a shovel and carried him to the back of the yard, yet my mood was brightened by his brightness. I dug a little hole, and buried him right next to my rabbits' graves next to the creek. I felt paradoxical senses of wrong at covering up all that beauty, and right at burying the dead. I tried to wish his soul well, and I hope that my showing I cared helped him somehow. I hoped that reached him, wherever he is.

As I handled the bird (don't worry, I never touched him with my bare hands - I won't get sick or anything), I marveled at how fragile he was. As I scooped him up on the shovel, I had to be careful not to bend his neck grotesquely. And he was so light - light as a feather. It's a miracle that something so fragile could survive at all, providing for itself and probably its family. It's the beauty of nature, and it's incredible.

The Environmental Lab, High School, and Changing the World

This week has been a week of many accomplishments. First of all, I found out that my Holocaust project earned 2nd Place in my division in the contest! And I get $100 for that! To put it simply...I'm quite proud of myself. I'm excited for the awards ceremony next weekend. Also, I found out who my advisor is for high school, and met with her and my parents today to discuss my schedule. She's the advisor I wanted, partly because she's the Freshman English teacher and from Yellow Springs, but also because I am - to some extent - friends with the Freshman girls in the advisory, all of whom are good writers. I got into Algebra II Honors, Biology Honors, and Mandarin III next year...so I've got an exciting schedule!

ATAC (Action Through Awareness Club) met on Thursday to finalize our goals and really start some action! We haven't done much in a while - we've been talking a lot about what we should do, and there are only a few people who are really dedicated. Most of the club left our meeting when they were finished eating, and didn't come back, but Cora, Chandler (another eighth grade girl), and I stayed for a while and talked about what we could do. We had a really good discussion - just the three of us, with our wishes and our caring hearts. We've all pursued options for the club and talked to our teachers, and we'll probably be able to continue in high school. However, it seems like the three of us - Cora, Chandler, and I - are the only ones really dedicated to it who genuinely want to make a difference, and whose want for that is coming right from our hearts. I've found our conversations very inspiring, and I can't wait to see where it brings us in the future.

And, last but not least, the groundbreaking ceremony for the environmental lab that is being built at MVS. It was this week, also on Thursday. And I got to represent the middle school. There were two students from each division, along with a couple of teachers and the family who got the project started, who got to scoop up a little dirt. It was an amazing feeling, being part of something that big, something I'm unbelievably excited about. As I was sitting in a chair listening to the headmaster's speech, this feeling swept over me, this overwhelming feeling of being present when something huge began. It was hard to stop and appreciate the full impact of what this building means for MVS and for myself, since it was right after a grammar lesson and right before a big American History test - such bothersome distractions - but I know that I will remember that day.

What's Up

Wow, I haven't posted in quite some time!

I must say, I'm tired tonight, so this will be quick... I'd like to catch up though, seeing as I haven't posted for a while. So, things that have happened recently:

1.) I submitted my Holocaust project about a week ago. It felt like a huge weight being lifted off my chest, since I've been working on it and thinking about it for so long. It's been haunting me...well, it still is.

2.) I had a saxophone lesson yesterday, and it didn't go so well. The reason? My teacher had to cancel for two weeks in a row due to a birthday and an illness. I was totally prepared for a lesson the first week. The second week, I was excited and overly prepared - I knew the songs so well. But this last week? I was really busy, and didn't have any time to practice. Any time. Meaning I couldn't play very well in my lesson, and I felt like it was pointless because I already knew all the things he was telling me. I was very upset...

3.) We're doing watercolor sunset silhouettes in art class. This means we do a watercolor wash for a sunset (get the paper wet, then use really watery paint and paint lightly...I suppose that's the best way to describe it). Then we're using dark paper to make a silhouette in front of the sunset. It's a thoughtful process. I've been enjoying art lately, enjoying it a lot, and I've been very grateful for it.

4.) I played in my second lacrosse game today... AND I SCORED A GOAL! I wasn't planning on it, wasn't expecting it... I'm very impressed with myself!! I love this game...

5.) We've started the book To Kill a Mockingbird in English class. I don't like it nearly as much as I've liked the other books we've read this year (which, I must admit, we've been very lucky with - they've all been extremely well-written and engaging). I suppose it's starting to grow on me a little bit. Like The Adventures of Tom Sawyer in sixth grade - I started to really like it towards the end. You start to love the characters in these classics...that's why they're classic!

6.) On Thursday, some Arab-Israeli students visited our school. Cora and I got to host one of the eighth grade girls. It was so fun! She was really good at English, yet there were still things she couldn't understand. Taking Mandarin and having experience trying to communicate with people in it really helped me understand what kind of situation she was in. We had to simplify the words we used and speak clearly. And now, I think I have a better understanding of what it will be like to be in China! Anyway, it was really fun hosting her, and I actually missed her at school today!

7.) A few days ago, I was craving chocolate chip cookies like crazy. And my mom made them...some of the best in the world. She's just amazing like that.

8.) Here's the reason why I don't watch shows like CSI: I get way too involved in them. (We watched an episode in science the other day because we starting forensics, and I got so wrapped up in it. I think the people who write the script and the screenplay are like...insanely smart.)

9.) We're making a video for our make a difference club. (We've decided to call it ATAC - Action Through Awareness Club. It was formed out of some people in our speech and debate class who really took the service projects we started on to heart.) We started on posters last week to use in the video... And I'm just super excited about making a difference! I love that, as kids, we can have such a huge impact on the world.

10.) I wrote something last weekend. It's a response to a picture prompt in an online writing group I'm part of on Shelfari (a book-sharing website), and it's supposed to be like a dream. Anyway, I really like it.

11.) I'm glad it's the weekend, and excited to work on Cora and my TV script that we're writing for Script Frenzy!

12.) I'm listening to Michael Jackson's "Earth Song" right now. It's a good song...

A Poem: "Success"

The quote that came up on my iGoogle homepage is from a verse of a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was one of those quotes that struck a chord with me, partly because of its meaning and partly because of its lyricism. The whole poem is copied below, for your enjoyment. I would reflect now but can't due to math homework and a particularly sharp pain in my shoulder tonight.

Success

We have not wings, we cannot soar;
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time.

The mighty pyramids of stone
That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen, and better known,
Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The distant mountains, that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed by pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise.

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

(http://holyjoe.org/poetry/longfellow1.htm)

Latin Phrases About Art

I was just working on my online Latin course, and I learned about some Latin phrases concerning art. There are a few I particularly like, so I'm sharing them here.

ars gratia artis - art for the sake of art

ars longa, vita brevis - art lasts long, life is short

ars est celare artem - true art is to conceal art

Note: I know I've been posting a lot today, and NONE OF IT IS FOR APRIL FOOL'S! But Happy April Fool's anyway... (Gosh, I wish Bean Day part 2 would have only been for April Fool's...)

The Sad Case of the Earth These Days

I just looked at a link sent to me by my dad about some more environmental stuff and...I'm overwhelmed! There are soo many things that need to be helped! And my generation will play a huge role in fixing them. It's frustrating, and overwhelming, and depressing, and challenging, and frustrating...I already said that.

The book I'm reading by David Orr about ecological design does a good job of bringing everything together, and explaining how we have to take everything into account and think ahead when using ecological design, as does the research I'm doing about Biosphere 2 for my term paper. (Which, by the way, I worked on for 1 and a half hours yesterday! Two whole pages! That just makes me want to squeal with pride!) It's all tied together. But when you look at all these things gone wrong in the world - global warming, poverty, disease, starvation, genocide, pollution, animal extinction, poor diets and unhealthy food, waste and waste and waste - it's so hard to put things in perspective! Not to mention all these wars and oil discrepancies! It's too much to deal with! I don't know what to do!

I'm doing my best though - taking out the compost every day, turning off lights and unplugging appliances...you know, among other things. Still, there's so much more. The world is so huge. And I want to help people too!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry about that. Needed a moment to express my rage there...

Anyway, my point is that there's so much to do I don't even know where to start. Gosh, that could be my motto, because I'm that way about a lot of things. However, once I get started, I always do really well. So I just have to get started. Wait, I am...Ooohh, this is confusing! Sometimes I really just can't wait until I can go to college and then have a job and be focused entirely on really worthwhile things! (Well, at least I hope it'll work out that way.) Then again, sometimes I just love being a kid.

So I'll do what I can, Earth. I'll do what I can now, and I'll do more in the future. Don't worry - I'll keep workin' at it.

Some Writing Frustrations and Grievances and Bean Day

This morning I woke up and started working on an explanation of the poem I included in my Holocaust project (which you can read in the post called "Monumental Poem"). The project will be submitted soon, and I felt that I should explain the genius of the poem because, well...it's not all that clear. That is, I worked in right after searching my computer for fantasy stories I could work on - I've been pining for fantasy lately - and then getting frustrated because I always fail to plan a story out before I start to write it. I've started soo many stories, and I've finished a few also...but then I always end up looking back at what I wrote and thinking that it could have been better. (I have an undying admiration for authors of great fantasy or science fiction novels that manage to weave together a long and imaginative story that is fantastic from start to finish...I always get tired of mine at some point, and I hate myself for it!) Anyway, I found multiple stories, but I was afraid to work on any of them because I knew I'd just get carried away and wouldn't actually accomplish anything... But then I did what I'd turned my computer on to do, and wrote the explanation of the poem for my project. It's long, and I hope it's clear enough, and I'm sure I'll have to do some editing.

A few days ago...or was it yesterday? Yesterday, I believe... I woke up and one of the first things I did was write some more scene/conflict note cards for my novel! The one I started for NaNoWriMo...A Beginning For the End. I still love that one...and it still needs a lot of work. And it's still not close to finished, of course. But I did finish something in the note cards. Let's just say it has to do with the death of one of my characters, and it was rather jarring to realize that I'd finished a certain section of the note cards that morning... It was really sad!!!

That makes me feel more secure about my novel though - that I felt so strongly about the characters. It's hard to admit it but...I've never grown that attached to my characters before. Still, this was hard.

Just as I was beginning to compose an email in reply to the one from my mother, I heard some quite disturbing noises coming from the kitchen. First there was a loud sizzle, some harried commotion, and then a bang, angry sizzle, a follow-up bang, and a cry from my father. Hurrying our of my cave of blankets and pillows and books, I rushed down the hall, images of my father lying on the floor with boiling water scalding his face racing through my mind. I walked into the kitchen and was relieved to find nothing of the sort. My dad was standing in the middle of kitchen, an extremely disgruntled - no, that's an understatement - unimaginably annoyed and surprised expression on his face. I saw the wet floor, and the continued sizzle, but only after his words did I really know what was going on: "It's another bean day." That was when I looked up and saw, to my horror, our white stove covered in black and goopy "beanstuff," along with a semicircle of it bubbling on the ceiling. I sighed and said, "Oh no."

The reason I'm not going into much explanation here is because, frankly, I've had enough of that. Seven pages, in fact. When this happened last year I wrote a narrative of it. (That piece of writing, I did finish!) So I'm not really up for going into too much detail now - I'm a little beaned out. Basically, our pressure cooker exploded. Beanstuff got all over the place. It's not a pretty sight. Yada yada yada.

I asked my father what had happened, and it was this: he had heard the pressure cooker about to explode, and moved it off the burner, then, when it kept acting up, he had backed up hastily so as to not be right by the pot when it exploded, and slipped full-out on the wet floor, banging up against the open dishwasher and somehow jamming his finger. Neither of us are sure if the beans exploded before or after he actually fell, but whatever happened, it was not good.

Well, I helped him get some arnica for his rapidly swelling finger, and immediately began wiping the floor. (My mom called right in the middle of it... I'm sure our news wasn't the best to hear in the middle of her last day at work before spring break.) Thankfully, the mess wasn't nearly as bad as it was last time. Last time, there was beanstuff on the opposite wall of the kitchen. This time, it was at least consolidated to the area of the stove. Yes ,it went up to the ceiling, and in the little cracks of the vent-thing above our microwave, but it was not nearly as bad. So we cleaned, and we did pretty well. We talked, and had a nice time together. My dad and I were planning on doing something together today, so we got that accomplished easily!

Later on, I made biscuits. I didn't eat, accepting the cup of tea I had while working on my Holocaust project and last two bites (literally) of the pie from yesterday, for a really long time today. There was too much to do! But I even did a little bit of filing today! That. Is. Pretty. Cool. And the biscuits and salad I finally got to have sure were good. Now, however, I'm feeling kind of stressed and a little overwhelmed. Blogging helps, though. Blogging always helps.

Thanks, Blog... Or should I say, World of Words, since that's really what you are.

College Visits Day 5

Monday, March 28, 2011

8:00 Woke up, went to the bathroom, discovered that both of my parents were definitely still sleeping, and decided to go back to sleep. Very gladly.

9:00 Woke up again only to see that my mom was already showered and dressed and my dad on his computer. Wow, time flies when you're dreaming!

So I took a shower. Unfortunately, I had to take mine last. And I don't do well being rushed out because I took the last shower. So basically...it was a bad morning. Let's leave it at that.

10:00 We walked over to the main part of campus and caught the campus tour just on time. The tour guides were all very nice, all girls... (Hey, I just realized - all the tour guides we've had at colleges have been girls...hmm.) But they didn't seem to have the same amount of enthusiasm for what they were doing as the students at Oberlin. Our tour guide kept talking about things as if everybody had the classic school-is-boring mindset... Which, I admit, I've never had. In fact, everyone there seemed like that. Like they couldn't wait till they could go and party, and they just weren't that interested in what they were doing. Lots of people are like that, I know, but I barely got that feeling at all at Oberlin. A large part of that was because the students we got to talk to individually were all very passionate about their studies, and that wasn't the case at Kenyon.

11:15 Afterwards, we sat in on an information session. It was a lady involved in the admissions process, and that was pretty much all she talked about! And boy did she talk! She seemed very nice and personable, and she did a good job of making the college admissions process very comfortable...but she barely talked about Kenyon! Seriously, at one point when there was a little lull in her chatter, she said, "Hm, I'm trying to think of what makes Kenyon unique... Well, I guess I just keep going back to the place." Yes. All she could think of was the location! Which, I've got to admit, was very nice, but not at all what I want.

It's isolated, on a hill. In fact, our tour guide said the founders built it there because then it would be above the sinners down below. (I couldn't help but be reminded of the colonists' City Upon a Hill theory.) All the buildings are very nice and grand. A lot of the classes are actually held in houses that the professors used to live in. One of the dining halls is called the Great Hall, and actually looks like a smaller version of the Great Hall in Hogwarts. The campus is beautiful, but it somehow isn't real. The "town" it's in, Gambier, is barely a town. It's really just a collection of a couple shops and restaurants on like...ONE street.

The whole time I was in the information session, I felt really uncomfortable. We were in a room with fancy chairs and a high ceiling and bookshelves lining the walls, along with big painted portraits of the founders or something. It felt too unreal, too fancy, not like a home. And not someplace where people would be passionate about what they were learning, and actually go out in the world and DO something about it.

We went back to our hotel room and checked out, then went to the cafeteria for lunch, because my parents insisted upon eating in there. Let's just say that I was in a very bad mood. I was very affected by the feeling of the place, and I felt very trapped. I hadn't had a chance to talk through it all with my parents yet, since we were always around other people, and I was hoping to do that during lunch. However, when you're in a cafeteria filled with college students, it's a little hard to tell your true feelings about the college they're going to, especially when those are largely negative! That, combined with this trapped feeling and not being able to find A SINGLE THING that I wanted to eat in the cafeteria, made that a very undesirable experience. I was hoping that I'd get some good food and feel better, but not at all.

While my mom walked around campus to take pictures, I stayed with my dad in the cafeteria while he ate his vegan veggie burger (which took so long because they actually had to DEFROST it), and then we walked down to the bookstore. We ended up just walking back up to the end of campus where my mom was.

We talked about all our perceptions of the school on the car ride home, but I was still really hungry, dissatisfied, and then nauseous. Finally, when we were drawing closer to home, we started talking about where we'd eat. After much much much deliberation, we went to Papa John's and got a large cheese pizza with tomatoes on it. My family NEVER orders pizza from chain restaurants...so that was quite a special experience. My mood improved a lot, and when, late in the day, we got home and settled down to an episode of Friends and some pizza, I felt a lot better.

Obviously, I liked Oberlin a LOT more than Kenyon. It was surprising what an extreme reaction I had to Kenyon, especially in comparison to how much I loved Oberlin. I'm sure Kenyon is just right for some people, but I'm just not one of them.

College Visits Day 4

Sunday, March 27, 2011

I woke up, very relaxed, and continued reading a book by David Orr (who facilitated the building of the Adam J. Lewis Center at Oberlin) called Design on the Edge: The Making of a High -Performance Building. The writing is pretty dense, and the paragraphs long, and I don't understand a lot of it as well as I could if my vocabulary was a little broader, but I still enjoy every word! I know I'm reading something written by someone extremely intelligent, regarding a topic that I'm passionate about...and every time I remember that it's about something that happened at Oberlin, it feels me with warmth. I like that place!

Anyway, that morning I also finished The Alchemist. I was stunned afterward - very moved. I will be writing another post about the book sometime soon.

So I spent a lot of time that morning sitting in bed, reading and thinking. And I drank some tea. After all of us had showered and gotten dressed, we walked out to find something for brunch. I was reaching a point of inner panic, having not eaten yet and not knowing where or what I would eat. We walked down to the Oberlin Market again...well, only after stopping by a little place we'd noticed called the Pizza Shack that offered pizza by the slice, but unfortunately was not open that Sunday. My mom got another German Chocolate muffin, but we couldn't find anything else, so we checked out a place called the Feve (pronounced fev), but it would have been a fairly long wait there, so we made our way back to the Oberlin Market, where I got a bagel and a blueberry bar. We had decided we'd go back to our "house" and eat the rice and lentil dish that my mom had prepared earlier.

After I took a bite of my blueberry bar, I was a much happier girl. I felt like a little kid again, only calmed by candy...although that blueberry bar was a lot better than any candy I've had! Anyway, we also stopped at Gibson's, the place with chocolate covered everything. I got some milk chocolate covered dried cherries and dark chocolate fudge. I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to get something from there...

We mournfully finished up our last walk through downtown Oberlin. At this point I just couldn't wait till I could eat that meal, and my stomach was feeling slightly knotted from having a few bites of the blueberry bar while walking... But anyway. Also, we stopped at a couple more pizza places while on our little stroll to see if they sold it by the slice, but they didn't.

We had a very nice brunch...Ok, well, it was about 1:30 or so in the afternoon, so more like a late lunch I suppose. We completed what little was left of our packing at that point, cleaned up the kitchen so it was just as we left it, and sadly made our way out the door and down the winding steps to depart our little home for the last time.

The drive to Kenyon was mostly in the country, and the winding road certainly did not make my stomach or my head very happy. When we finally arrived...boy was I glad to get out of that car!

We stayed at a place called the Kenyon Inn. It was like a small hotel, and the room was actually a lot nicer than most hotel rooms. But the first moment that we drove on campus, I just didn't like it as much as Oberlin. And when we opened the door to our hotel room, I was grateful that we could stay in such a nice place and be comfortable, but the house we stayed in at Oberlin - which was owned by a lady named Jo - was just so much more personal!

Once we moved in, we walked around campus a little bit. We were also looking for a place to eat, and weren't very successful. There were only about three places to eat on campus - the cafeteria and two restaurants, The Middle Ground and The Village Inn. The latter was closed, and the Middle Ground just didn't have anything that we wanted. The cafeteria wasn't open at that time. We ended up spending some time in the bookstore, which was my favorite part on campus. I read some of Alice Through the Looking Glass, which I actually found extremely interesting - partly because our school play was a variation of Alice's adventures called Alice in America-Land, and partly because there were footnotes throughout it that explained little things like the name of Alice's cat. Anyway, at this point I was getting hungry and annoyed, and my head was once again not in the best shape since I hadn't brought my glasses with me, so I was totally ready to get back to our room. We decided to just eat the food we had with us, which was exactly what I wanted to do.

Unfortunately, my stomach still felt pretty bad afterward. And then I got really full after not eating much, and then my stomach hurt but I was still hungry, and blal-de-blah-de-blah. However, my night was much improved when we turned on the TV and there were re-runs of Friends!